Curatorial Practices and Publishing

We took our time walking around the fantastic spring break art fair this year. Brought to you by the creative duo Andrew Gori and Ambre Kelly, the show takes place in the sprawling halls of 4 Times Square. It's a white washed glass infested floor that housed the Vanity Fair production offices. This year artists magically transformed it into the home of the best artwork during NY Armory Artweek 2017. Here are our 10 picks!

Justin De Demko one of the brilliant minds behind the Castor Gallery in the Lower East Side present Tamara Santibañez. A totally punk whitewashed room reminding me of adolescent insanity. Peppered with Iron Maiden, Suicidal Tendencies and other metal references, this show made my inner teenager very happy. I was told that they considered using the title "All I Wanted Was A Pepsi" for the show. If they did, I would have peed my pants on the spot.

Jacob Rhodes from Field Projects curates the magically surreal and ancient animal masks of Rachel Frank into a tiny office space on the 22nd Floor. This rhino titled "Coelodonta antiquitatis, Pleistocene Era Woolly Rhinoceros". I had the pleasure of doing a studio visit with her a year ago and her studio looked like a funhouse mirror of the natural history museum.

In contrast to the neon art school swag we usually see at spring/break Massey Lyuben gallery in Chelsea organized a beautiful booth pairing the paintings of Eric Helvie with the wonderful and sensitive textile art of Matthew Larson (image above)

Hidden away down one of the labrynthine 23rd floor hall of Spring/Break lies the black laboratory of artist Vincent Como. The object above is Como's cast of the volume of his brain in black ink. A brilliant artistic poem and perhaps one of the best "drawings" I've seen in a long time.

Had enough of black and white art you say? Where's that neon color?!? It's right next door in a joint curatorial project by Vanessa Albury, Jamie Diamond, Lauren Silberman, and Elisabeth Smolarz. So much good work, but perhaps my favorite is a small video by artist Rachel Rampelman. Her 'rorschachs' reference pop culture and the female form. Rampelman is def ready for prime time!

Another artist set to blow up is Peter Clough at the Christopher Stout gallery. Stout's show, PINK REFLECTIONS, is one of the only SpringBreak rooms exploring queer identity. Peter Clough contributed a show stopping giant animatronic wonder wheel self portrait. Talking with Stout we agreed our two favorite aspects of the work are the dirty feet and the clicker in his right hand. As with all the best art, this one has to be seen in person to fully realize its genius.

In more traditional media, these small-ish squeegee paintings on metal ground by Kate Blomquist are simply gorgeous. Curated by Teriha Yaegashi, once again she proves her amazing curatorial eye.

Also worth mentioning are the semi surreal paintings of Kenny Rivero in Karin Bravins Booth. I really want one of his drawings!

Sean Fader presents his year long instagram project, involving photoshopping his face into random scenes of life. Some of my favorite are the ones including kids. The children are usually smiling in childish glee but with the impostion of Fader's face they're glee slowly transforms into horror. Brought to you by Denny Gallery

Rounding out the fair is a quiet yet beautiful collection of prints by Sto Len. He's been sailing the toxic waste sludge pit that us Greenpointers affectionately call Newtown Creek. On his journey Sto finds the sludgy-ist polluted sections and pulls prints. These wonderfully encapsulate our mission at the Midnight Society, mixing beauty with darkness.